The dissidents claim there were disparities in vote totals for Democrats, too few voting machines in Democrat-leaning precincts, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling place and confusion over the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose names did not appear in the records at polling places.The electors cast their votes nonetheless. I admire Arenbeck, but I do not expect much from his effort.
If the court decides to hear the challenge, it can declare a new winner or throw out the results. The challengers also planned to ask the court to stop the Electoral College delegation's vote until their case can be decided.
Tampering. Meanwhile, in what may be the most important development of this remarkable day, Libertarian candidate David Cobb says the Triad company has tampered with central tabulating system in Ohio. He says he has an eyewitness whose name cannot now be revealed. Here is a partial rushed transcript of Cobb's statement before Conyers' hearings:
Rep Conyers, I have the most recent, breaking information, it will be brief but I think very important.This behavior will strike many as suspicious, to say the least.
It's probably the most (unclear) incident that has been related to my campaign. It was related only on Sunday, Dec 12th, regarding a very shocking event that occurred last Friday, Dec 10th. The person who is reporting it, at this point, wishes to remain anonymous, but I will bring it to this committee because this must be investigated
A representative from Triad Systems came into this county's BOE offices unannounced on this Friday. He said he was just stopping by to see if they had any questions about the upcoming recount. He then headed into the back room where the Triad (unclear) that is, the machine that COUNTS the ballots, is kept.
The Triad representative then told them that there was a problem with the system, that the system had a bad batttery and had quote "lost all it's data" endquote
He then took the computer apart and started swapping parts in and out of it and in another spare (tower PC?) in the room...
...he finally reassembled everything and said that it was working, but that not to turn it off.
He then asked which precincts would be counted in the 3% recount test, and the ones which had been selected, as if it had the right number of votes, was relayed to him, and he did something else to the tabulator.
The best coverage of the Conyers hearings can be found here.
Reports in sworn affadavits affirm numerous instances of direct official interference with the right to vote. In Warren County, Democrats were being targeted and forced to use provisional ballots, even if they had proper identification. These ballots were then subjected to more rigorous standards to be counted than were other ballots. In a half-dozen precincts in Franklin County, people who were not inside polling places by 7:30 PM were told to leave - even if they had waited in line for hours. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Sworn affidavits also confirmed reports of old voter rolls being used, meaning that new voters were not on the list and would be given provisional ballots, if allowed to vote at all.
Affidavits were also filed in support of the election challenge suit raising questions about manipulating exit poll results and computer tabulation of county and statewide votes.
In one exit poll affidavit, Jonathan David Simon, an expert witness, notes that at 12:53 a.m. the exit polls altered the projected winner – even though the same number of votes had been cast. "Although each update reports the same number of respondents (872), the reported results differ significantly, with the latter (12:53 a.m.) exit poll results apparently having been brought into congruence with the tabulated vote results." In other words, the exit polls were made to conform to a political decision to declare Bush the victor.
Another exit poll affidavit, filed by Ron Paul Baiman, an economist and statistician at the University of Illinois and University of Chicago, said the swing in national exit poll results, recorded at 12:33 a.m., when Kerry was winning with 50.8 percent of the vote, to Bush winning with 51.2 percent, was, "in lay terms, impossible."
"This is more than a 100 percent swing in the other direction of the exit poll margin, he said. "There is less than a one in 25,000,000 (1/25,507,308) chance of this occurring."
In a letter to Ohio's Governor, Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, John Conyers and others have pleaded for the vote of the electors be rescinded or treated as provisional. The argument comes down to Blackwell's disingenuous tardiness in certifying the election results; although he had promised to complete his count within ten days, he took over a month, leaving no time for the recount effort. In essence, the Secretary of State has chosen Ohio's electors, a job which the Constitution assigns to the legislature of the state.
The Clinton Curtis story has received a respectful hearing in the cyber-pages of Wired.
Even as I write these words, Curits is testifying before the Conyers committee. (Thanks as always to Brad Friedman.)
No comments:
Post a Comment